


Brienne and the Endless

by Miss_M



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Crossover, F/M, Gen, Post - A Dance With Dragons, Post-Canon, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-24 17:51:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/942881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ASOIAF/Sandman crossover</p><p>The Endless have much in common with the New Gods of Westeros, but are older and bigger and will outlive the Old Gods and the New. They will certainly outlive two mortals, even if those mortals happen to be Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth. But though they may make her their battlefield, Brienne is not their puppet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brienne and the Endless

**Author's Note:**

> This crossover seemed so organic: seven Endless, seven New Gods, even if the parallels are imperfect. Anyway, the Endless are what the New Gods want to be when they grow up, so I did not focus on Westerosi theology or Gaimanian metaphysics. Instead, I wrote a series of vignettes as a possible continuation of the canon so far, and how Brienne deals with it. Spoilers through ADWD. I own nothing except the forlorn hope J/B get something even vaguely resembling a canon happy ending.

_**Despair** _

She had to do it. 

There had been nothing of Lady Catelyn Stark left in the pallid, misshapen thing that had rasped out hatred and rage, doled out painful death like grain in a Long Winter. Nothing. Brienne had to believe that, had to believe Lady Catelyn incapable of it. Otherwise she would see the hideous creature that lay at her feet, its empty heart cloven in two, its neck severed by Brienne’s blade, as her lady, to whom she had sworn fealty and loyal service, to whom she had made solemn promises. Promised to bring back her daughters. Sworn to deliver the Kingslayer. On her honor.

 _They make you swear and swear_ , Jaime had said when first they met. She had thought him flippant then, beyond care for his ruined honor. 

He was calling her name. Some of Lady Stoneheart’s ( _not Lady Catelyn, never Lady Catelyn_ ) men were still in the woods, still alive, waiting for them. They would have to fight their way out, they could not linger.

She dropped her sword, reached out to close the dead ( _truly dead, now_ ) thing’s eyes. Tried to touch that skin like cold clay. Her fingers curled up like a crone’s as she felt a fishhook, sharp and thin, bury itself in her heart and tug. She did not know if she was crying or screaming or making no noise at all as Jaime shook her shoulder, pushed her sword into the her claw-like hand, dragged her along like a blind woman. 

 

_**Death** _

The king was dead. He was not alone.

King Tommen, that sweet boy. His lovely, vicious mother. His lovely, sometimes vicious queen. His vicious grandfather. His clever uncle was missing, presumed dead. 

Brienne would like to believe the Stranger may have been kind to them, may have even smiled. But she has heard how absurdly Tywin Lannister died, how his proud daughter bent and broke at last while dragonfire turned her golden hair to burnt straw. And she has seen Tommen’s head looking small as a lemon impaled on a spike, his wife’s head trailing long, blood-matted tresses beside it. Her brother’s head was next in a long row, the brother whom Renly had loved. 

Brienne told herself she should think them together now, but she could not find enough kindness in her mangled heart. She could not spare any of her depleted strength on consoling thoughts when Jaime ( _lovely, vicious_ ) threatened to shiver to pieces beside her. It was her turn now ( _her turn again_ ) to drag him away from the ruins of his life, force him to eat, shout back when he hurled abuse at her, hold him when he cried like a child in the night, make him get up and walk further away from the capital every morning. 

The Dragon Queen’s reach was long and her vengeance fire-bright, but she did not yet control all of the Seven Kingdoms. Sansa Stark was reputed seen in the Vale, but had not yet been found. And Brienne and Jaime were not yet dead. Not yet. 

 

_**Delirium** _

It never occurred to her a fever might do it. 

Brienne expected to die by sword slash, or dagger thrust, or possibly bear claw. In truth, a dagger was involved. Wielded by Petyr Baelish, Lord of the Vale, even as Jaime’s sword slid under his ribcage, it ripped through Brienne’s upper arm, grazed her shoulder, a rabid weasel’s final chance to lash out, poison, strike down those better and braver than he. 

Then the fever came.

Brienne knew Sansa Stark was alive and well because she could just about recognize her in the darkened room where she lay, feel the girl’s small hand ( _her mother’s hand_ ) on her damp brow. The fire in the brazier made the young Stark’s ginger hair look red, blue, green, purple. Mad, impossible colors on a girl who was as real and alive as anyone Brienne had ever met. 

She knew Jaime came to visit her because she heard his voice conferring with Sansa. Or maybe it wasn’t him. She couldn’t be sure. Sometimes he almost sounded like her father, weary and kind; other times like Renly Baratheon, cheerful yet tense. Maybe she was already dead and did not know it yet. She drank the foul-smelling posset Sansa brought her, and slept fretfully. 

 

_**Dream** _

She knew right away.

The water which lapped at her bare toes was warm and crystal-clear, blue like the sky caught in a bowl. The island behind her shimmered green and yellow in the sun, resounded with the sounds of summer: harvesters’ song, fishermen’s cries, sheep and dogs and the battle-calls of crickets. 

News of the devastation of Tarth had reached them just before they left the Vale. Rumors, confused and macabre, vague enough for hope, but not for Brienne. She knew right away, knew in her bones it was all true. The Dragon Queen’s reach was long and growing longer still. 

So Brienne knew none of it was real even before she saw the other people on the beach, the living and the resurrected dead. The young man who was even taller than she and looked just like her. She knew his name, though she did not dare say it. Their mother, whom she did not remember yet could not mistake for another. Jaime, a jest on his lips and a fondness in his eye. Her father, looking well, better than she remembered. Renly. Pod, smiling next to Sansa, looking like he was considering taking her hand in his. Even Hyle Hunt, looking kinder than he’d ever been in life. 

All the friends of her heart. Gathered together on the beach, as though awaiting glad tidings from a ship on the horizon. 

Jaime peered at her with concern when they broke their fast. 

“Are you so sad we are nearly in Winterfell you must cry in your sleep, wench? Or are they tears of joy? Perhaps you are looking forward to being rid of me once we install the Queen in the North in her ruined hall, and her grateful Northerners are done feasting us half to death.” He tried for jest, but the worry bled through. 

Brienne wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, forced herself to smile. “No, of course not,” she said truthfully. “I just had the loveliest dream.” 

 

_**Desire** _

It was his fault. 

The days were finally brightening and softening toward Spring, and they had enjoyed a quiet early-morning meal from the ample provisions Queen Sansa had given them. Too quiet and sedate for Jaime Lannister’s tastes, apparently. He started to hum as he rinsed their cook-pot in the stream, disjointed, senseless snatches of sound at first, but before long they resolved into melody. A very specific melody. Bears were involved. Bears and maidens. 

Brienne glared at his back, knew he could feel the force of her gaze, suspected he started to sing just to see how much harder she could glare. The more she glared, the louder he sang. Apart from it being dangerous, since Queen Sansa’s truce with the Dragon Queen said nothing about the only surviving Lannister and his companion, it was also extremely _annoying_.

“Jaime,” she said from her place by the dying fire, a quiet warning. 

He broke off singing and stood, flourishing the clean pot like a sword, and gave her a deep bow. Stood by the murmuring stream, sunlight in his hair, his eyes gleaming like new leaves, his chin proudly lifted. Brienne could not help noticing how his throat was already sunburned, how the hollow of his throat was pale and smooth where he had left his jerkin unlaced. She knew she was biting her bottom lip, but she did not feel nervous. 

His eyes sparked and his throat was bared to her. A challenge. A submission. 

She looked down, raked earth over their breakfast fire. Told him to hurry up, they were letting the day get away from them. His answering sigh slid through her like a blade, matched the sting of regret, the shudder of want that rattled her like a dry seedpod.

 

_**Destruction** _

Brienne knew what she should expect. 

She had seen King’s Landing burn. She had walked through war and out the other side, bloodied and scarred and alive.

This was like nothing she had seen before.

The only thing she recognized on Tarth was the blue water. The island itself seemed alien to her. Her eye could find nothing to rest on. And when it did, it was like looking at a familiar tapestry or a well-loved painting, slashed and burned and covered in an angry child’s black scrawls. Evenfall Hall, the sept where she had been named, the fields and forests and pastures and houses she had known. Cinders. Ash. No one left alive. Even the seagulls had gone. 

After Renly, after Lady Catelyn, after Tommen’s head on a spike, she had thought herself familiar with death. Not like this. There was not even a stone with her father’s name on it, something she could lean on. Somewhere she could cry. Scream the choking feeling out of her and into the sky, the earth, the sea. 

If she could understand it, this pain might be easier to bear. But dragons and understanding do not coexist easily, and dragons always win. 

Jaime gave her a day and a night to wander and sit and stare at what could never be her home again. Perhaps she will tell him how grateful she was for that day and night. How it mattered more than anything else he had ever done for her, given her. On the morning of the second day, she climbed into their boat and let him steer them away, the dead island sinking behind them. 

 

_**Destiny** _

Braavos had two things to recommend it: it was not in Westeros, and it was not at war. 

Neither of them harbored any illusions about what their end would be if they remained in Westeros. Not even the North was entirely safe, for all that Queen Sansa owed them a debt of honor. Too much bad blood between Northmen and Lannisters, too many foul rumors about Brienne’s treacheries. 

Essos was very big and relatively peaceful. There might be other places beyond it. And Braavos was the gateway to it. This was all Brienne knew about it, and all she wanted to know. She no longer hoped to find Arya Stark in the continent’s vastness, though stranger things had already happened. So maybe she hoped a little. Just as Jaime hoped against hope to find the brother he had loved and lost. 

The girl whose mother Brienne had killed. The brother who hated Jaime with the heat of dragonfire. 

She shakes her head over her cup of sweet wine in a dockside tavern, while Jaime prattles cheerfully about maps and guides and caravans. When dark thoughts wing over her, she can always rely on him to make her smile, and frown, and laugh. 

They ought to be dead already, just two more people ground up when kings and queen clash. So any possible ending Brienne can envision has a certain appeal. Whether she imagines them dying in a brawl with sellswords in some city where the Common Tongue is not spoken, or riding across a sea of grass while he japes about Dothraki wedding customs and she turns in her saddle to glare at him, or improbably old and frail and _together_ with grandchildren gamboling around their aching feet like kittens. 

She feels as though she were turning a page in a book she knows by heart, and finding it blank. As though she herself were turning, her ribs fluttering like pages in a breeze, her heart and hands shaping words, sentences, a story. It scares and comforts her. It is enough.


End file.
